Data Usage

Wow! I typically use about 50% of my monthly data (20GB). It reboots on the 12th of the month. Two days (23rd) ago I had used about 20% of this month's data. Today I turn on the computer to find I've used it all??? I called support, and a lady there informed me that that my data usage was valid. It certainly was not. Where do I go from here to get my speed back/ And my data? I live back in the woods with no neighbors close enough to steal data, and my connection monitor shows no idication of any strange connections.

One thing that comes to mind as a hog of data is Windows updates. If you're using Windows, it's entirely possible that an update might've eaten up a goodly chunk of your data.

Another thing could be a virus or malware. If a brand-spanking-new bug has been introduced, it could make it past an antivirus or malware protection program. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen (speaking from experience here, sadly).

Sorry that I can't answer your question about getting your data/speed back. Have you considered emailing viasatlistens@viasat.com? They might be able to give you more information.

I will say between Sunday and Tuesday of this week there was some mysterious data usage. I’ve used less than 40gb this month. Somehow I used 16gb between Sunday night when I left home, an hour at home Monday, and general browsing and YouTube for a few hours Tuesday evening. No updates. No pc on. Managed data for over a decade. Just more than should have been consumed. Last night I did some light browsing and played Xbox for about two hours. Used .1gb. Go figure. I’m attributing it to “catch up” data readings, but keeping an eye on it now.

Beware Windows 7 and Windows 8 updates - in my case and in the last week alone I've encountered a couple monthly security roll ups that have repeatedly downloaded and installed (despite installing successfully the first time) - the Windows 8.1 update in particularly was some 300+ MB and went through three iterations before I stopped it and burned a just under GB in no time at all.

Since Windows 7 and 8 updates have pretty much slowed to a once monthly security update event, I had re-enabled automatic updates trusting Microsoft - no longer and have reverted to simply being notified when available ;)

I've read from a few people that have Dish that certain Dish receivers are much more data friendly, not using data for anything other than their On Demand viewing, or at least very little data. Whether that's true, or true in all instances and situations, I can't say. I still wouldn't try it, though.

Now, DirecTV receivers? Ugh! I've seen instances of those things wiping out people's data in a matter of hours. It's awful. About a year and a half ago I connected mine just to see what it was like, and besides all of the terrible changes it made to the receiver, which caused me to have to perform a factory reset to "fix", I could see the data draining in real time. And this was while I was watching absolutely nothing On Demand. I turned it "off" and it was still sucking up those MBs. It was awful.

I learned my lesson about sat TV receivers, and so many others have, as well.

Now, if I want to watch anything On Demand, which isn't very often, I use the network's own On Demand app. I stream it on my laptop, which I connect to my TV with an HDMI cable. That way, I can still watch it on my TV. Those apps use data for nothing more than the actual streaming, and you can just close it when you're done. Easy and safe (data wise).

Gabe, so many people get the false impression that when those TV DVR's are turned off, that they are really off.As you said, they are in standby and ready to record programs. Directv units are the worst for downloading all kinds of things, even if the users don't think they have scheduled them. The Dish Hoppers are much less data hungry fellows. I had Directv a year ago, and did experiment with how much data it might use after reading some issues that came up in this forum. It was near the end of my cycle, and I had some data left. I connected my DVR to the internet, and scheduled nothing. After 24 hours, my Directv DVR had consumed over 3 GB, and several different series of programs had been recorded, as Directv claims, these are programs we thought you would like since you have watched similar programming. The DVR was taken off my home network after that trial period.

Last August, I switched to Dish TV to save a large amount of money on my TV costs from Directv, which had increased regularly since AT&T took over. My Hopper 3 has been connectted to network, and uses around 3 MB each day unless I watch on demand programming, or when I use the "Dish Anywhere" feature when I am away from home and want to catch the local news.

My findings tell me that the Dish Hopper 3 uses only data when you actually schedule on demand recordings, while the Directv DVRs use data like it is free.

﻿Not a problem here. When I realized my tv was coming on only about two times a month I asked myself, "Why am I paying $100 a month for this?" Network tv actually turned me off a long time ago, so it was easy to kill that purchase. I haven't missed it at all. I now have a separate computer hooked up to my 60in tv to feed the internet to. The tube, music videos, etc, are nice on the big screen. Network tv is dead. For $10 a month I get two discs out from Netflix which covers well my movie needs. Yeah, I'm an old coot who lives alone, so this won't be an answer for everyone, but it sure makes me happy.

I didn't mention that about a year ago I had a similar event. I believe I was at about 50% data used when suddenly I had bottomed out. I didn't mention it at the time because I was but 2-3 days from bucket refill, so let it ride.

Thanks to Matt B. at Viasat. He researched the problem and found a massive, 16Gb download in a 2-3 hour period. His best guest was an update, although he indicated that's a LOT of data for any update. The source of the download was secured, so he couldn't find out where it came from. Thanks also for the 5Gb they gave me to see me thru. If I could find this data on my machine, I would be glad to make payment for the 5Gb. All I know at this time is that it does not appear to be a windows update. I haven't a clue as to what else would require such a massive udate....

Malware, possibly? Do you have anything else connected to Viasat in addition to the Windows 7 machine?

16GB is awfully large for an update, and the only thing I can think of that could cause that, at least with Windows update, is a failure loop, but if you're not seeing any indication of updates in your Windows Update history it's probably not that.

Before you can control your data, you have to identify the devices, programs and processes that consume that data. With the emphasis here on you...

Only you are in the best position to do that. It's really not Viasat's job but more importantly as Matt B notes, due to both technical, security and privacy constraints Viasat
can't really provide a detailed explanation of data usage (well they
could, but many would find that level of tracking to be objectionable).

Yes it's a lot of work but you'll be better positioned in the future to determine if the loss is yours or Viasat's (since that's always a possibility - yes I had one that was Viasat's). Without that effort you're just using a hunt and peck approach.

With regard to possible Malware (if unwilling or not wanting to track your usage in greater depth), if relying solely on MSE I'd suggest getting a second opinion - MalwareBytes often detects anomalies that others don't.

Wow. Not on the data but the speed. That’s 14-19Mbps constant for two to three hours. Mighty impressive. If they told me that, I’d straight up laughed. My connection couldn’t do that if it wanted. Must have known to download during non congested periods. I’ve never seen Microsoft, Xbox, or Apple updates download that quick. That’s a hard pass for me.

For those of you who followed this thread, and might wonder about my internet viewing habits, I've used 0.4GB of data since VIASAT gave me the 5GB to see me thru a few days ago. Now you should know why I got so perplexed when 16GB disappeared in a couple of hours. (grin)

Just wondering if your data usage issue was ever fixed. I have a 150GB plan and historically use 40 to 50 GB per month. I have been on a residential plan for over a year and a half. For July Viasat says I used 150GB in 7 days. Totally impossible. I was throttled down to less than 1 Mbps. Customer service told me that there was nothing that they could do. "Sorry you used it." Complete nonsense. Since we had to wait til our account reset on Aug 12th, we have been using our phone hotspots which we can easily monitor data and used less than 16GB. With our phone we get a report of every instance, time and date of usage. Viasat will not provide this information. You just have to take their word for it. Who's kidding who? I wondering how many other customers have legitimately experienced these data discrepancies. They need to come forward as something is not right. I was a business user of excede for a few years and with 4 of us hardly ever went over our allowance which was less than the 150GB plan I have now. It's just me and my wife on a residential plan. Our usage patterns have not changed a bit.

Just wondering if your data usage issue was ever fixed. I have a 150GB plan and historically use 40 to 50 GB per month. I have been on a residential plan for over a year and a half. For July Viasat says I used 150GB in 7 days. Totally impossible. I was throttled down to less than 1 Mbps. Customer service told me that there was nothing that they could do. "Sorry you used it." Complete nonsense. Since we had to wait til our account reset on Aug 12th, we have been using our phone hotspots which we can easily monitor data and used less than 16GB. With our phone we get a report of every instance, time and date of usage. Viasat will not provide this information. You just have to take their word for it. Who's kidding who? I wondering how many other customers have legitimately experienced these data discrepancies. They need to come forward as something is not right. I was a business user of excede for a few years and with 4 of us hardly ever went over our allowance which was less than the 150GB plan I have now. It's just me and my wife on a residential plan. Our usage patterns have not changed a bit.

Thanks for your comment. Why is it they will not give me an accounting of the time and date usage? They can go in and see it and gave me verbal examples, but they won't provide it. I can easily get that from my cell phone provider using my hotspot. If they gave me the accounting then that would be the proof, right? They refuse to give me the logs regarding our usage.

Would you believe them if it was provided? Many here would still maintain that it's impossible even if provided with that info - it's somewhat like letting the fox guard the hen house.

Many of us simply track detailed usage on our own using our own routers or third party utilities installed on each of our devices. We simply use that to verify the accuracy (or inaccuracy as the case may be) of the Viasat usage count. I've been using that method for nearly six years now and have only encountered one discrepancy occurring back during year 1 with the Exede service. It also tells me not only when data was used, but how, by what applications and what web sites (hosts) were involved. Trust but verify. Plenty of info on tracking data usage independently is provided just above

That being said, yes, Viasat should beef up its usage meter to include daily usage counts but that only tells you when the data was used not how or by what. It wouldn't kill them to give a monthly history going back a year either. Neither of those however are going to be reliable measures in addressing any excess usage attributed to bloated web sites, autoplaying videos, preloaded videos, ads, runaway java script and much more.

Privacy issues would be raised if Viasat were to track each and every web site you're visiting - not that it's not possible to do so and probably is to a somewhat lesser extent than what you really want them to do - but they're not going to open Pandora's box unless there's a court issued warrant to avoid sliding down what could become a very slippery slope.

As Old Labs mentioned, what many of us do is, on the devices for which we can do so, install programs/apps that can track data usage. If we have devices that can't have programs/apps installed, but monitoring them is of importance, some of us go the next step and purchase a 3rd party router with the ability to monitor the data usage, and with the ability to break it down by connected device.

I, personally, don't have a 3rd party router that can break it down like that, but I do have one that monitors the total data usage, and even with something like that (which cost me $40), it can tell me whether or not my devices used the data. That may not help with a one time thing, but with an ongoing issue I could figure it out by process of elimination.

Do you possibly have a game console or satellite TV receiver connected to your ViaSat service? They can sometimes use data without you knowing, and even when they're turned off, at least in the case of the latter. I don't have a game console, so I don't know what they can do when they're "off".